Paladin tactics
Paladin Strengths * Ability to heal, even when being attacked. * Ability to buff themselves and others in a variety of ways. * Ability to cleanse poison, disease, and magic debuffs from themselves and others. * Ability to be a front line fighter (i.e. 'tank') * They have some of the best soloing capabilities of all the classes Paladin Weaknesses * No universally useful base skill ranged attack. : There are ways around this, however. Trinkets such as Linken's Boomerang, a reward for quest series in Un'Goro, the engineering profession, for grenades and other ranged trinkets, by getting EZ-Thro Dynamite from an engineer or items such as Magic Candles. Also the Talent Holy Shock is a 20 yard ranged ability. Holy Shock is on a 15 second timer, and has a lowered mana cost as of 1.9. Holy Shock may be a better pull than dynamite because usually dynamite has a an area of effect while Holy Shock targets a single mob. Exorcism and Holy Wrath can also be used as a ranged/pulling attack, although only against undead and demon targets. This spell is the best source of damage that a paladin has, so use it when you get the chance. It is more useful in areas such as Duskwood and Desolace, for the high number of undead and demons, respectively. However, for PvPers, remember that Horde "undead" are Forsaken and classified as humanoids, so this doesn't work on them. : Hammer of Wrath is also a ranged attack, though it is only usable when your opponent is at 20% health or lower. You can learn the first rank of this spell at level 44. : Blood Elf paladins have a ranged ability unique to them, as the racial ability Mana Tap has a 30 yard range. It can be used to pull, but does not cause damage and thus does nothing for Paladins trying to kill an escaping target. It should be noted that this ability does not "tag" the enemy to give the user its experience or honor. * A paladin's ability to stay alive is directly based on mana, so cherish it, love it, keep it coming, and be thankful that paladins have great tools for gaining mana: Spritual Attunment, Blessing of Wisdom, Seal of Wisdom, and Judgement of Wisdom. Not to mention the standard mana potions. End-game, there is also +mana/5 sec armor. The amount is low, usually 5-25, but it does stack up. * Certain abilities have long cooldowns, which means they can only be used once in a combat instance or longer, and must be used very strategically, lest they be wasted. These are: Divine Protection (5 minutes), Divine Shield (5 minutes), Divine Favor (2 minutes), Blessing of Protection (5 minutes, 3 with talents), Lay on Hands (1 hour/40 minutes with talents), and Repentance (60 seconds). * The paladin is very susceptible to anything that counters spells and being killed as a result of a Holy Light cast being interrupted is common. Getting below 30% health as a pally is a quick way to die (unless you have the Ardent Defender talent). Keep your health up and outlast, that's the pally way. If you have to heal remember to switch to Concentration Aura which reduces your chance of being interrupted by 35%. *Due to their incapability to dish out ranged damage, if a PvP enemy wants to get away the Paladin will have to do something about it before the target gets too far. They have Hammer of Wrath/Avenger's Shield but they have long cooldown timers. Judgment of Justice now limits movement speed of players, so this should be used frequently and combined with Blessing of Freedom to finish off opponents. What stats affect my damage the most? There are two basic stats that are important for a paladins DPS. Those two are attack power (AP) and +spell damage. And then melee/spell crit as appropriate per ability. Seal of Command does its holy damage based on what your weapon output is, which means you will get rough 1.7 times the damage out of AP, which will raise both your normal weapon damage and your Command proc. Seal of Command does have a +spell power coefficient (29%), but if you are a retribution paladin, then you will most likely want to forgo large amounts of +spell power for AP and melee crit. Judgement of Command and Righteousness both benefit from +spell power a lot more (43% and 50%, respectively) so if you plan to be judging either a lot, you may want to pick up a little +spell power. As a holy paladin, you will want to go straight +spell power. Even if you use Seal of Command, the fact that +spell power will add onto every damage ability that you have will benefit you more overall than AP. Spelldamage coefficients and ability crit types are listed here. Basic Solo Strategies This is not a complete list of Auras, Blessings, or Seals. It is limited to those what best improve solo play for any Paladin. The strategy put forth here is to reduce downtime to a minimum by maintaining a healthy amount of mana. The focus therefore is to balance the output of damage with the need to move to the next mob without stopping. Auras Always make sure you activate an aura appropriate to your situation. Change as the situation calls for because it's instant and cost no mana. The protection auras can be replaced with potions from Alchemy. ; Devotion Aura :Early on this is all you have. Mostly useful in groups after other auras become available. ; Retribution Aura :While soloing this will be the primary aura to maintain, it works especially well on fast hitting mobs. :Available at 16th level. ; Concentration Aura :Switch to this aura when you need to heal. This is especially important if you do not have the talent Spiritual Focus. Combine it with the talent and there will be very few effects that will interrupt your healing. :Available at 22nd level. ; Sanctity Aura :Only available through talents. Switch to this talent before using any Holy effect like Exorcism, Holy Shock, or judgement to increase the damage. Blessings Make sure you always have a blessing active. The 5 minute timer is easy to overlook. At higher levels you can use Greater Blessings for 15 minute buffs but they have a components cost. Remember that it is an instant cast, so even if you're in combat you can go ahead and bless yourself or others as necessary. ;Blessing of Wisdom :A Paladin lives and dies by his mana pool so it is wise to regenerate mana however possible. Maintaining your mana will allow moving on from fight to fight with little to no downtime. ;Blessing of Might :This will increase your DPS. While nice it may not reduce the length of the combat significantly. ;Blessing of Salvation :Useful to place on party members that have low survivability and may pull aggro off the tank. ;Blessing of Kings :Available only by talent purchase. Increases all your stats by 10%. This will not significantly reduce the time of your combats. ;Blessing of Sanctuary :Available only by talent purchase. When you're taking a pounding from multiple targets this may increase your survivability. However, if you're in such a situation you should be looking for an escape. Seals & Judgements Seals are self-buffs which boost the Paladin's power temporarily. Effectively, they add a weapon proc to their melee strikes. Additionally, Paladins can judge these seals upon an enemy which either applies an instant effect -- usually damage -- or provides a permanent effect as long as the Paladin continues to hit the target. Permanent effects can benefit more than just the Paladin. For more detailed information see Paladin#Seals. ; Seal of Righteousness : By itself it provides X amount of additional Holy damage per hit based on weapon speed. : When judged it does instant X holy damage to the target. : Your first seal. ; Seal of Wisdom : By itself it provides a chance of returning X amount mana per hit. : When judged it provides a smaller amount of mana per hit, but to any party member doing damage. : Available at level 38. ; Seal of Light : By itself it provides a chance of returning X health per hit. : When judged it provides a smaller amount of health per hit, but to any party member doing melee damage. : Available at level 30. ; Seal of Justice : By itself it provides a chance of stunning the target. There is a maximum number of times this will happen. : When judged it prevents the mob from fleeing when it has low health. This is best used to prevent humanoid mobs from running back to get friends or aggro similar mobs. : Available at level 22. ; Seal of the Crusader : By itself it increases weapon speed while reducing attack power. It raises DPS slightly. : Very useful for raising proficiency with a new weapon. : When judged it increases the amount of Holy damage the mob takes from any source. : Available at level 6. ; Seal of Command : By itself it provides a chance to deal additional Holy damage equal to 70% of the damage of the attack. : When judged does X to Y damage, more if the target is stunned or incapacitated. : Available through a talent in the Retribution tree beginning at level 20. Seal and Blessing Sequencing : Some of these sequences are talent independent (Mana and Health Conservation), while others are designed for Retribution-spec paladins. There are a few quality addons that can aid in sequencing, "Supercast" being one of them. * Mana Conservation - Once judged with Seal of Wisdom each hit to the judged target grants up to +59 mana to the attacker. In conjunction with Seal of Wisdom active on the paladin, he/she can generate +59+90 mana per hit. In addition, Blessing of Wisdom can generate +33/tick. With a fast 1h weapon a paladin can generate up to 149+149+33 ~= +333 mana per tick. And that does not take into consideration the Improved Blessing of Wisdom talent or mana regen gear (mana/5). The Concentration Aura helps to ensure you get that heal off in time. * Mana Conservation 2 - Or, alternatively, increase your weapon speed (and the amount of mana you get from your Judgement of Wisdom) by casting Seal of the Crusader. * Health Conservation - Once judged with Seal of Light, each hit to judged target grants +61 health to the attacker. In conjunction with Seal of Light active on the paladin, he/she can generate +61+94 health per hit to the paladin. Blessing of Light augments the paladin's healing spells. A paladin can generate 155 health per hit. The Concentration Aura helps to ensure you get that heal off in time. * 2H "Damage" Sequence - This sequence is truly for a Retribution-spec paladin, due to the use of Sanctity Aura and Seal of Command. While utilizing a damage sequence, it's important to pay attention to the current seal timer. One should judge the seal just before the timer expires to get full benefit of the seal and its Judgement. The sequence below also takes into consideration the bonus to damage one gets if your target is stunned. * 1H "Damage" Sequence Following the release of Patch 2.0, Paladins now have the ability to obtain Crusader Strike as the 41-point Retribution Talent. However, the Holy 31-point Talent Holy Shock was all buffed, with the cooldown reduced to 15 seconds. Crusader Strike is an instant-cast melee attack that does 100% Physical Damage, but has no range. Both Holy Shock and Crusader Strike have great usefulness in soloability, but Holy Shock truly shines because it is a ranged attack as well. Suggested Casting Sequence for either Holy Shock or Crusader Strike is very similar to the above sequences. Seal of the Crusader, Judgement (of the Crusader), Seal of Righteousness, Holy Shock/Crusader Strike, Judgement of Righteousness, etc. With either of these sequences, Blessing of Wisdom is recommended over Blessing of Might, because the DPS gain from physical contact is significantly lower than the damage possibilities from the extra mana generated by Blessing of Wisdom. Naturally, if you are not grinding an extensive amount of time and you are basically focus-firing a particular creature, like a Rare-Spawn or a Quest Mob, then Blessing of Might (or Kings) would be a better choice since your endurance is not really necessary. Seal of Command and weapon choice The way Seal of Command's damage is calculated can make some weapons more suitable for a Paladin than for other classes. To understand how this extra-damage stacks on top of simple (aka white) damage check the compendium of the best Paladin's weapons. Miscellaneous For PvP combat, be careful when fighting classes capable of dispelling 'magic' effects. These are most notably priests and shamans. A shaman purging you will remove two beneficial magic effects (normally your current blessing and a seal). If you are inattentive, you can be caught without these on, and a much easier kill. Use Holy Light early and often. Once you have Spiritual Focus and can heal fairly fast in combat, make sure you still heal early so as not to get caught in a situation where you simply can't heal fast enough. If you do manage to get caught in that situation, (We all do sometimes... it sucks!), there are several ways out of it. If you are fighting just one target, you can use Hammer of Justice to stun it. The length of this stun is variable depending on the rank you are using, but it will always allow you to get at least one heal off. If you are fighting multiple targets, then you can use Divine Shield/Divine Protection, whichever you have. Again the length varies with the rank, but you should be able to get at least one heal off with it. Keep in mind though, that these two shields are best used when you are out of mana. If you can, use all your mana healing with spiritual focus, and then use your shield and bandage yourself. You do know first aid, right? Also, by the time the shield wears off, if you had blessing of wisdom on yourself, you should now have enough mana to heal yourself again. The second to last ability, blessing of protection, protects you only from physical attacks. This can be used to apply a second bandage, if you are only fighting melee enemies, and if you have not used another shield or bandage on yourself in the past minute. Try and space your use of these shields out. The last thing to be mentioned here is lay on hands, which of course, is a full heal that drains all your mana. This is always best used as a last ditch effort: The second wind, as it were. Also, later ranks in the spell will give the target some mana back, which makes it even more useful when you get worn down. If you're running low on health and mana and are in trouble, it's almost always better to use a mana potion than a health potion, especially if you have points in Spiritual Focus. At all levels a mana potion will allow you to cast a heal and still have plenty of mana left. A health potion can be a better choice if the mob is very close to death, if your health is so low that you'll be killed before you can get a heal off, or if your heal is likely to be interrupted. Though paladins are a little less reliant on potions than other classes - unlike most casters, they can still fight fairly well when out of mana, and unlike most physical combat classes, they can heal themselves - it is wise to carry around at least a few level-appropriate mana and health potions. Don't worry so much about DPS as how long you can stay alive. If you get into a sticky situation, and keep hitting something for 4 DPS over the course of 3-4 minutes it will die. The counter to this is that if you cannot keep yourself healed, you better run because that is your strongest ability. When it becomes available Blessing of Light significantly increases the mana effectiveness of the paladin healing spells Holy Light and Flash of Light. Flash of Light is more mana efficient than Holy Light and is a shorter cast; use early and often. Basic Partying Strategies You will have two roles in a party: healer and tank. One of these will come first and one second, depending on the makeup of your party. Make sure you (and others) are aware of your role from the outset to avoid problems later. Normally, if no priest is in your party you will be healing while trying to keep aggro off the 'weaker' party members. If you are tanking, you should probably always have righteous fury on - it is always better for a paladin to get aggro instead of the squishies in case the warrior drops. Begin the fight, and when the mobs get to you, use consecrate at least once. Consecration is your friend. It's also the friend of all those AoE addict mages and warlocks out there. Just make sure they don't start AoEing until your consecration has been going for a few seconds, and keep casting it as they keep AoEing. And make sure you have righteous fury on. If you start getting low on mana -- this technique is mana intensive -- then begin the fight with seal/blessing of wisdom and keep using them throughout the fight. It will help to keep your mana up. Also note when someone in your group uses crowd control. Consecrate is notorious for breaking all kinds of crowd control - try to avoid using it around sheep, mobs on ice, or shackled undead. If you are the only possible tank in the group, then it is better that the group allow some room between the mobs that are getting CCed and where you grab aggro. And if your group is using hunter traps, or wyverns stings, or the crowd control tends to break early, you should probably save holy shock for getting aggro when the newly freed mob goes straight for your squishes. While you can keep a party member alive simply by healing them and not pulling any aggro off them, this is not to say they will be just as effective. Prime examples of this are mages: their DPS will drop if their casting is being hampered by being hit. Their DPS will be much higher if they can get off their spells at maximum speed while you tank. Buff everyone in your party to their best advantage. Ask your party what blessings they would like. You will be loved. The party will most likely be better as a result of each member being given the blesses they prefer and like to work with best. If another pally is in the group, talk with him and the rest of the group that way all members have 2 blesses that they like. You will be loved. Same sort of thing for multiple pallies and auras. You will be loved. And remember: being loved gets you invited to another run/group. Also, if there is more than one paladin in the group, make sure you use your judgements and seals in concert, and do your best to all judge the same mob. Decide early which paladin (or other player) will be the one that the others assist. One possible combination for three paladins: # Judgement of Justice, Seal of Justice (prevent fleeing, give stun chance) # Judgement of the Crusader, Seal of Righteousness or of Command (maximum Holy damage) If the mob being attacked gets cowardly and tends to flee when he finds out that he won't outlast the player characters, the first one is indispensable. For maximum damage, the second one is very good, but that's all it's good for. If it's only one mob, and that a boss, if you're most concerned about simply making it out alive, all paladins in the group should use the Seal of Justice. This may cause the stun to stack so that he may never recover from it, if the hit rate and the stun rate is good enough. Even in this case, there should be at least two different judgements on him. Use auras that provide the best benefit to the party, not just to you. Retribution is probably better used when all of the party already has pretty good defense, because the differential won't be that significant. However, when in a group of squishies, especially if they have a tendency to generate aggro, Devotion should be best because that extra armor may just nearly double their defense capability and keep them alive a considerable amount longer. Concentration may be one that is least used, and should never be chosen if there is only one paladin in a group. Pay attention to your party members health. Make sure you heal them when they need it, or you may be resurrecting more often than you might want to. Also, the death of one party member may lead to a higher probability of a wipe. As a paladin, most of our increased healing power comes through +healing items and enchantments, as well as a good chunk of damage coming from +spell power. Just for general information, here is a list of enchantments that are useful to us: *Hands - +30 Healing *Head - +10 Stamina, +7 Defense and +24 Healing (ZG) *Legs - +10 Stamina, +7 Defense and +24 Healing (ZG) *Shoulder - +33 Healing - Exalted - Zandalar Tribe (ZG) *Weapon - +55 Healing *Weapon - +30 Spell power *Bracers - +5 mana/second Duel Strategies The ultimate PVP build is holy tree to divine favor, protection tree to repentance. Get 300 first aid, as you will need it in certain matchups. It could cost you around 20g, but trust me, it is worth it. Paladins don't realize that the 20 yard stun in protection tree > any skill you can possibly have in retribution tree. You see the second stun (Repentance) is invaluable both in dueling and real PVP. It is very hard to escape from someone with two ranged stuns. Whatever little extra damage you do via retribution tree, doesn't do you any good when you get kited. The 20 yard stun makes ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD versus ranged classes. It also gives you yet another way to get guaranteed healing. When you are using first aid while you are immune, and divine favor + illuminance to get free critical heal, your mana bar lasts very very long. As of Patch 1.9 the new Paladin Talent trees do not allow for us to have Repentance or BoK with Divine Favor anymore as DF was moved. If you have first aid at 300 this is not to much of a problem with your second stun but it will mean we get no more "free" heals in combat. ' Edit 2: As of Patch 1.9, Repentance was moved to the retribution tree (as to balance Reckoning). I believe this makes the above info obsolete. There are many good builds for 1.9 Paladins, and most are posted on the World of Warcraft Paladin Forum. ' Here we go: *Warrior, you should be able to beat 5 lv higher than you, You have 2 stuns, use the first one to damage, the second one to heal yourself. For same level fights you may not even need to heal yourself to win. *Rogue, First if you are human use perception and spam rank 1 consecration and run out of the area just as the rogue enters it and gets unstealthed. Cheapshot has a 5 yard range, hammer has 10 yard, it is very very hard for a Rogue to land the cheapshot but even if he does land it, it is no problem. Once again, stun to damage, sleep to heal. When you do go immune, use your bandage. You only need cleanse to remove poison and seal of crusader + Seal of Righteous/Command to do damage. Don't let your health go below 30% and you can survive biggest combos. *Hunter, Once again, the two stuns and your big 2 hander will easily allow you to close the range. Cleanse and blessing of freedom as much as you can. Worst case divine shield and bandage. Try to get off a repentance -> heal. This fight is cake. The so called "kiting" does not work at all versus Paladins. A note: CLEANSE VIPER STING! It costs the hunter more mana to cast viper sting than for you to cast cleanse. Do it. *Priest, "hard matchup". Here is how you can make it easy. A priest will not try to damage you until they drain your mana (any damage they do just repentance them and heal yourself). Stun them on any mana burn attempt if you are in range and whack them with your 2 hander. Eventually you will be low on mana, now the priest will try to damage you. It is almost impossible for a priest to shut you down so hard that you can not even divine shield, divine shield and bandage and priest will simply run out of mana. And worst case pop a LOH and there is no way he has enough mana to drain all of your mana as well as killing you. *Mage, Blessing of Freedom and Cleanse will free you from root/snare spell. Go whack them and try to stun them out of spells. They will blink, no problem, you run up to them and repentance them, now they can't blink and you can either get some hits in or heal yourself. Outlast is the key here and once again you can always divine and bandage yourself. Make sure you stun->repentance in conjunction of each other and you will have no problems destroying mages. Mana for healing > mana for damage, especially consider the mage has to sheep you if you get low. *Shaman, The idea here is to gain control of the battle from the Shaman. When Earthshock hits, you're put on cooldown for 2 seconds. Use Flash of Light to bait them into blowing Earthshock early - remember, shocks are all on the same 6 second cooldown. Then after the cooldown is gone, go into a normal Holy Light heal. When they plant a totem, walk away from it. Cleanse those Frost Shocks, and re-bless and re-seal when they Purge. The key is to out last their mana. Heal early, heal often. When you Shield up, bandage to conserve mana. As soon as a Shaman is out of mana, they are reduced to melee. And you wear plate :D *Warlock, A good idea is a check how much damage the debuffs the Warlocks puts on you are, if there pretty high that means he's using his max rank to cast them and you should spam that Cleanse button to start making him blow out him mana. If there low he's baiting you into using cleanse like mad. Unyielding faith is a key talent to surviving the fight as a Warlock will DoT and Fear you in the whole fight. The Felhunter is a real bitch in a fight and should be Exorcismed to death, they will destroy you. Again, the key to this fight is outlasting the Warlocks mana to a point where he has to Life Tap. If you can heal through the damage, keep any pets of his off you or kill them then eventually he will blow his life and his mana. Then all you have to do is Hammer of Wrath him or smack him with your 2 hander. Warsong Gulch It is a common opinion that in PvP shamans are more powerful that paladins. That may be true in some cases when you compare damage output, however the ability of a paladin as a role player and support class in all battlegrounds not just Warsong Gulch is incomparable. Defender Having stun effects are crucial for defenders. When defending the base, intruding enemies will find ways to speed in with potions and Boots of Speed. As long as the paladin is still within distance, one can stun the carrier using Hammer of Justice and get a few attacks in, ideally giving time for teammates to rush in to help. Group members near the paladin will be able to take advantage of the paladin's auras (such as Retribution Aura), and having more than one paladin will allow multiple auras. Blessing of Protection may help save party members from pesky rogues and is often more effective than a regular healing spell. Flag carrier Despite reduced speed and lack of stealthiness as compared to a druid or rogue, the paladin still makes a decent flag carrier nevertheless. A paladin with specialization in protection talents works great in PvP. Devotion Aura can block close to 50% physical damage taken, and Guardian's Favor decreases the cooldown of Blessing of Freedom. This allows the paladin to escape Earthbind Totems placed in enemy flag rooms, plus evade nasty stun and slowing effects. Depending on the strategy used and the character's build, the paladin can flee quite well with Blessing of Freedom, or may choose to attack and kill an enemy or two before running, to avoid being hit with curses and ranged attacks later. Hammer of Justice works well for the carrier too, to stop chasers from following and interrupt spellcasters. And of course, having healing options available is extremely beneficial. Although the paladin cannot use Blessing of Protection or Divine Shield while carrying the flag (without dropping it), Holy Light can be used if not being attacked or silenced by enemies. Lay on Hands fortunately works on oneself too. A paladin could have multiple healing sources at the same time — seal, blessing, healing spells and of course health potions. Having different ways to get healed helps deal with cooldown times. Flag carrier assistant Perhaps the best suited role for a paladin is as a flag carrier assistant. Blessing of Sacrifice allows you to transfer damage from the blessed group member. This will break crowd control spells and abilities like Sheep, Seduction, and Sap on the friendly target. Since the only thing important is getting the carrier home alive, this spell is essential to use. A second powerful tool paladins are equipped with is Blessing of Freedom. This will prevent any kind of movement-slowing and stun effects, including the mage's Frost Nova and the warrior's Intercept. Guardian's Favor is an essential talent for this very reason. Hammer of Justice and Seal of Justice are indispensable tools for stopping chasers from getting to your carrier. Finally, as a healer, the paladin can heal the carrier, either with Flash of Light or with the more powerful Holy Light spell. Cleanse can remove many curses and effects. Blessing of Light may be an option, especially during the cooldown time waiting for Blessing of Freedom again. Lay on Hands is maybe the most powerful tool available, allowing you to heal the target instantly for your entire hit points. Note that this will take up your entire mana, but if your carrier is nearing or in home base, that extra push may decide between victory and defeat. The paladin also may very well be the best defender for the carrier when back to base. In a situation where the carrier cannot score because team's flag hasn't been returned, the paladin has the ability to heal the carrier and fight off intruders as the offense attempts to return the flag. Flag carrier decoy Even better, the paladin works effectively as a decoy. In a heavily defended enemy base, with a little help, the paladin may be able to get through with the flag using Blessing of Freedom, Hammer of Justice, Insignia of the Alliance, Cleanse, and Lay on Hands — anything to get far enough away while easily attracting defenders to chase after. To perfect the stunt, when about to die, cast Divine Shield, which will delay your death and hopefully catch the attackers off guard and occupy them by trying to attack you further while another teammate picks the flag. Flag returner Although not quite as effective as a warrior or hunter in this role, the paladin can nevertheless make use of improved running speed and stun abilities. Seal of Justice is excellent for stopping flag carriers. Blessing of Freedom becomes useful chasing after carriers when enemies are placing Earthbind Totems. Pursuit of Justice may be critical for running down opponents to get within attacking or hammer range. If the enemy carrier is below 20% health, Hammer of Wrath can work and potentially kill the escapee, enabling a flag return. Divine Shield is a nice last ditch effort to counter any slowing effects and prevent damage, while still allowing the paladin to attack. Gear guides See: Paladin tactics/Gearing up See Also *Paladin: Working with Other Classes *Paladin: How to Kill A... *Paladin: How to Help A... Category:Paladins Category:Tactics